room. "Get her used to being in the house, she'll die of pneumonia like the last dog we had. Don't take an animal out of Nature. Hey, Cassie: what time is it?" "\'Thich clock?" "Mv clock." "A little after seven-thirty. The oth- er has it before." "\i\T e gotta go, kid. We gotta move." My mother said to me, "Eat up, Peter," and to him, "That cheap clock of yours runs ahead of time, George. Granddad's clock says you have five min utes." "That's not a cheap clock. That clock was thirteen dollars retail, Cassie. It's General Electric. If it says twenty of, I'm late already. Gobble your cof- fee, kid. Time and tide for no man wait" "F or a man with a spider in his bow- el," my mother said, "you're awfully full of pep." To me she said, "Peter, don't vou hear your father?" I had been admiring a section of lavender shadow under the walnut tree in my painting of the old yard. I had loved that tree; when I was a child there had been a swing attached to the limb that was j list a scumble of almost-black in the picture. Looking at this streak of black, I relived the very swipe of my palette knife, one second of my life that in a remarkable way had held firm It was this firm- ness, I think, this potential fixing of a few passing sec- onds that attracted me, at , the age of fì ve, to art. For it is at about that age, isn't it, that it sinks in upon us that things do, if not die, certain- ly change, wiggle, slide, re- treat, and, like the dabs of sunlight on the bricks under a grape arbor on a breezy June day, shuffle out of all identity? "Peter." My mother said it In the voice that had no margin left. I drank the orange juice in two swigs and said, to worry her, "The poor dog is out there without even anything to drInk, she's just licking this big chunk of ice . 1 " In ler pan. My grandfather stirred in the other room and pro- nounced, "Now that was a favorite saying of Jake THE NEW YORKER Beam's, who used to be stationmaster at the old Bertha Furnace station, before they discon-tinued the passenger station. 'Time and tide,' he would say, so so]- emn, 'and the Alton Railroad wait for no man' " "Yeah but Pop," my father said, "did you ever stop to think, does any man wait for time and tide?" At this absurdity my grandfather fell silent, and my mother, carrying a pot of simmering water for my coffee, went into the other room to defend him. " G " h . d " 1 d ' eorge, s e saI, w lY on t you go out and start the car instead of torment- ing everybody with your nonsense? " "Huh " he said. "Did I hurt Pop's feelings? Pop, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I meant what I saId. I've been hearing that time and tide line all my life, and I don't know what it means. What does it mean ? You ask anybody, and the bastards won't tell you. But they won't be honest. They won't admit they don't know." " WI . " 1 . d lY, It means, my mot ler sal , "(;: /- ,,/1 q (f I t :t .'1 n \ - ", _ , v:'" f ; ' " - ..' ' - . " f:' . ............ !^ \ 37 and then hesitated, finding, as I had, that my father's anxious cUrIosity had quite drained the saying's simple sense ". , 1 1 . away, It means we can t lave t le Im- . bl " pOSSI e. "No, now look," my father said, go- ing on in that slIghtly high voice that forever sought a handhold on sheer sur- f " I .., I aces, was a mInIster s son. was brought up to believe, and I still believe it, that God made Man as the last best thing in His Creation. If that's the case, what are this time and tide that are so almighty superior to us? " My mother came back into the kitch- en, bent over me, and poured the smok- ing water into mr cup. I snickered up at her conspiratorially; my father was often a joke between us. But she kept her eyes on my cup as, holding the handle of the pan with a flowered pot- holder, she filled it without spilling. The brown powder, Maxwell's Instant, made a tiny terrain on the surface of steaming water and then dissolved, dying the water black. My mother . ;- . :i". :--.:c: .: .å \ / f , , t I ,,, < . . " tt ., ". \ ' .t.i! & Q.,Y ;'" - r /1 oM' i ---=to -cw............, _ . x ;< , L ------.. . t? I I -- # ;:if<' "For goodness sakes, George. T he subpoena only covers books and records."